The Hundred: Fall of the Wents (14 page)

The bee had clearly briefed Aarvord, and Aarvord did what was expected: He hoisted the surprised Elutia over his broad shoulders and turned to the others for direction. Hatch inclined his head gently to commend Aarvord for his victory in the fight.

“We have to move quickly,” said Hatch. “We have wasted enough time.”

As they exited the room, with Hatch in the lead, they could hear the buzzing and clacking of fattened Shrikes returning from the feed. It seemed to come from all directions so that Tully wasn’t sure which way was safe.

“Quickly!” said Hatch. “You must all—each one of you—think very strongly of something good—a memory. Something that no one can touch. Your safety depends on it.”

They all dithered in a panic. What was he saying?

“Now!” said Hatch. “Do not hesitate. Think of that good thing now and do not stop thinking of it until they pass. Do not move. Do not even breathe. You must trust me.”

So they all stood very still where they were, and each one of them thought of something safe and good. For Tully, it was a small moment when he had turned five dream days. He had been crouching by the Windermere, looking down into the water, and Hindrance had touched his ear with a water-flower. It had tickled and Tully had jumped up with a cry of surprise and pleasure.

Copernicus thought of a warm day in the forest when he had hidden from his parents, brothers, and sisters, and had flicked shapes in the dirt with his tail until the afternoon shadows began to grow.

Aarvord thought of Justice and a moment in his childhood when she had held him on her lap and told him a little story from her own imaginings. It had been about two magical Ells who lived in a sparkling kingdom, and who played mischievous tricks on each other.

Nizz struggled for a moment with his memory, and almost fell into a thought of Ozz, and how they had been companions. But no. He could not, would not, think of Ozz right now. Instead, he thought of the little boy, Bax, whom he had met inside his sojourn in the box. He thought of Bax fiercely, and of how the boy had innocently tossed things into the river. He was a sweet little thing. Would Nizz ever see him again? He tried to stay happy, and to think happy thoughts. Dull Bees, being generally solemn, did not do this well.

Elutia, worried and in pain, could not think of anything. Her memories were short and brutal. So she reached into Tully’s mind and shared his memory with him. She could feel the tickle of the water-flower and hear the splash of water from the lake, lapping at the shore. Tully, adrift in his memory, looked up and was surprised to see her there. She was crouching there next to him, as if she had always been part of this particular memory. How unusual this Went was and what powers she had! She looked up, and they smiled at each other. Tully wondered if he would ever have that memory again without seeing her there, too. Then he grew flustered, knowing that she could hear every one of his thoughts.

Hatch alone did not try to raise a good memory, for he didn’t need to. The Shrikes would pass around him anyway, for he was just another of their kind. Either way, he had very little good in his life to ponder. He had been raised from an egg in a breeding pod, where Shrikes bred for service were born. He had no parents; the stuff that made him what he was had been put together by a bored orderly, moving by rote down a long row of egg-pods. He knew this because this was the way all Shrikes were made. As a young Shrike he had not played and run—except for the strengthening exercises that he took with his peers in the Shrike-pens. He had been told what to do, where to go, and what to think.

Were it not for his meeting an Eft prisoner the Shrikes had kept in the stronghold many years ago, Hatch would likely have been as brainwashed and mindless as the rest of them. But Hatch had been the one selected to bring the prisoner his meals. He thought about how pleasant, and yet jarring, these interludes had been, and how the prisoner’s words had helped him retain something that the prisoner had called “individuality
.
” He had looked forward to meal times when he could have long discussions with this prisoner and learn about the bright and sunny world far from the northern lands. Then the prisoner, named Skakell, had escaped. He had not said goodbye. He had disappeared. Hatch had been glad for this.

So, they all stood still, thinking their hopeful and good thoughts. Almost as if they were in an invisible, protected bubble, while the hordes of Shrikes clattering back into the domed room passed around them like water around a rock. The Shrikes did not seem to notice them at all. But they did notice that Elutia was missing; a cry of alarm was raised. A team of Shrikes, ten strong, clattered past them again with great shrieking cries of outrage. But, again, no one even glanced at them.

The companions huddled close for many minutes, waiting for a word from Hatch. Elutia and Tully, still bent over the Windermere in Tully’s memory, dared not look up from the ruffled surface of the water. Then something extraordinary happened. Elutia lifted her head and looked directly at Hindrance. “You!” she said. “Here?” And Hindrance, upon seeing Elutia, burst into joyful tears. “Then you are alive and safe!” said Hindrance, and leaned down to embrace the young Went.

So shocked was he upon seeing this that Tully lost all concentration. The scene fled from his mind. Elutia was ousted from his memory and Hindrance scattered like the petals of the water-flower. The Windermere vanished and he was once again back in the Shrike stronghold. He looked up, knowing that he was moments away from being spotted by the first Shrike to turn its head in his direction.

When Tully broke the circle of protection, the others lost their focus as well. Hatch, dismayed, fixed them all with fierce looks, begging silence and concentration once more. They all ducked their heads down. Tully would have struggled to regain his beloved memory, but Elutia spoke within his mind once more.

“Just a little while longer,” she said, bringing him back to the shores of the Windermere. In the memory—although it seemed like a dream now, for it had never happened with her there—she plucked a water-flower from the edge of the lake and handed it to him. The flower was a pale white blossom, ringed by dark green leaves. It was very like the blossoms that surrounded her own face, but larger.

“I can’t…I don’t understand,” said Tully in the dream-memory.

“Sssh,” said Elutia. “You don’t have to understand anything right now. I can explain it all later.” Tully stared at her and at the small flower buds surrounding her face. Her face was very pretty. But
he winced again at the realization that she knew his thoughts just as quickly as he did.

Elutia could sense that Tully was having difficulty remaining safe within the memory. So, with an effort of concentration and will, she caused the circlet of flower buds around her face to open, slowly, so that her face was lined with white blossoms like the water-flowers dotting the shore. She laughed exuberantly and Hindrance clapped her hands and laughed as well.

“Oh, very good!” said Hindrance. “You are what I expected!”

Tully wondered how much about Wents he had never known. Who was this Elutia? Were her gifts greater than those of other Wents? Was this why the Shrikes had wanted her?

Hindrance and Elutia exchanged a look, and Tully wondered if somehow—in a strange confluence of dreams and memory and time—Hindrance could also read his mind, during that time so long ago and yet so present. Or perhaps she had always been able to read his mind and he simply never knew.

Tully had little time to puzzle over these conundrums, for a sharp tap from Hatch on his shoulder woke him from the reverie. The others were all alert now. The danger had passed. The room was empty of Shrikes and the small clutch of companions was alone.

“Where did they go?” asked Copernicus, whisking out from the group to look around, his small head alert.

“The whole pod has been dispatched to look for their charge. Her.” Hatch gestured at Elutia. “She was more important than we realized.” Here he looked at Tully with something akin to respect. “Little did they know she was right here under their snouts.” And Hatch laughed with a grating
haw-haw-haw
sound that bit at Tully’s nerves. This Shrike might be their friend, but he was a rough-edged one.

“We must move with great speed now,” Hatch said. “They can be fooled once. But I cannot assure you that it will work a second time. Especially,” he added, with a look at Tully, “when some of us lack the mental control to sustain the trick.”

Tully began to fume. “So where do we go?” he asked sharply.

“I know a way out from here,” said Hatch. “But first we must get something against the cold. The temperature has dropped.”

He opened a small storage compartment in the wall of the domed room and handed each of them a small, tapered object. He also took a Kepper-Root robe from a rack and handed it to Aarvord, who draped it clumsily over Elutia’s shoulders. Hatch himself would not need a robe. His feathers and fur were built for the cold.

“Not exactly a blazing firebrand, is it?” groused Aarvord. Tully smiled to hear his friend sound like his old self again.

“They are heat-candles,” snapped Hatch. “Hold them close, even under those robes you wear, and the heat will grow and keep you warm.” He looked down at Copernicus. “I cannot give you one, because clearly—
haw-haw-haw
—you cannot hold it! You will have to stay close to one of the others.”

Copernicus shivered at the thought of going back out there. But he had no choice. He raced up Tully’s leg and inside the vest again, tucking down tightly near Tully’s armpit. The Eft squirmed with the tickle of it. Between this, and the bee in his ear, he was constantly bothered! All he needed was Fangor in his hair to be complete. Of course, he wished that they could find and save the Sand Louse, too. But Fangor would have to make his own way out.

“Wait,” said Tully, before they began to move. “What of Justice, your sister? We cannot leave her here. We must save her as well.”

Hatch gave an impatient sigh. But before he could protest about saving this creature and saving that creature, Aarvord cut him off.

“That won’t be necessary,” said Aarvord shortly. “Justice is gone. She is no more.”

Tully and Copernicus were shocked, but Aarvord’s expression made it clear that he did not wish to discuss the matter and, indeed, they had no time to dwell on it. Silently, they followed Hatch to the opposite end of the domed room, and down a narrow staircase that twisted and turned abruptly. Aarvord carried Elutia all the way; she bore her fate with grim humor, although Aarvord clumsily knocked her against the wall several times.

Tully still avoided meeting her eye. She had seen too much into his mind and he was embarrassed. A couple of his thoughts had rested too long on her pretty features. He studiously tried to think of anything
but
her, and wondered if she would ever creep into his mind unannounced. No, he decided, that would be rude, and Elutia was a dignified Went like all of her kind. There! He had gone and thought of her again. He should have been thinking of poor Justice, his friend’s sister. What had become of her?

The stairs led to a thick door, which Hatch opened with a key that hung around his neck. Clearly, their savior was conveniently high in the ranking of Shrikes to earn the right to carry the key to their exit. They entered a narrow, dark tunnel, and the cold struck at them instantly. Hatch pattered along ahead of the group, urging them to move faster.

The tunnel was very long and low, and reminded Tully of the Underbelly. Their adventurous trip there seemed so long ago, now. They had not been in great danger then. For most of the group the closeness of the tunnel was not a problem since they were all small creatures. Only Aarvord struggled with the tunnel’s height, and his burden, and he gave some unfortunate oaths, known to Fantastic Grouts, that would have burned the ears of any of his cousins—or his sister, for that matter.

Justice—he could barely think of her without weeping. She had been so changed, yet she had still been his sister. For the short time they had had in the cell together, he had been able to speak to her and remember some things that had been good. When they had come to end her life—for she had been useful to them, and was now no more—Aarvord had been invited to watch. Invited! He had not been given a choice. He had gone to the Killing Pits with the Shrike-pod whose duty it was to terminate the invalid and useless. What he had observed and heard there had broken his heart. He would tell his friends of it one day, but not now. Justice was gone and he could not bring her back. In a way, it was better that her life had ended; the sister he had known long ago was gone, and in her place they had left an ill and anxious creature with no joy nor hope.

But they had underestimated the degree of his rage. He had escaped the Killing Pits and made his way to the auditorium to battle the Shrike-Grout that they had made. He had killed a great number of Shrikes on his way and no doubt their carcasses were still being discovered. He did not regret killing any of them. He had never killed anything before—not even a being so small as a Sand Louse, but everything had changed. It was difficult for him, now, not to blindly kill Hatch, the Shrike who was determined to help them get out. Fortunately for them all, carrying Elutia gave Aarvord focus and purpose.

Finally, after what may have been an hour or more, the tunnel began to slope upward. They emerged from behind drift-encrusted boulders into a blinding white snow. They were safe. They were free.